The Lotus Flower

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The Lotus Flower

We are a non-profit that supports women and girls impacted by conflict and displacement.

We are local implementers that work at the grassroots level to get right into the heart of the communities.

30/09/2026

أصوات النساء، وحلول مشتركة. 🤝

في الموصل، جمع مشروعنا "معاً أقوى" رائدات أعمال وأسرهن وقادة مجتمعيين وممثلين عن السلطات المحلية في جلسة حوار مجتمعي حول المشاركة الاقتصادية للمرأة.

💬 الأعراف الاجتماعية والأسرية
💰 الوصول إلى التمويل والأسواق
🚌 النقل ورعاية الأطفال
🛡️ السلامة في بيئة العمل

وناقش المشاركون حلولاً عملية نابعة من المجتمع، واتفقوا على خطوات مشتركة لتوسيع الفرص الاقتصادية أمام النساء.

مشروع "معاً أقوى" ممول من الحكومة الاتحادية الألمانية ضمن برنامج SPACE، ويُنفَّذ بالتعاون مع منظمة كير العراق.

In Mosul, our Stronger Together Project brought together women entrepreneurs, their families, community leaders, and local authorities for a community dialogue on women's economic participation.

💬 Social and family norms
💰 Access to finance and markets
🚌 Transportation and childcare
🛡️ Safety in the workplace

Together, participants explored practical, community-based solutions and agreed on shared steps to open more economic opportunities for women.

The Stronger Together Project is funded by the German Federal Government as part of SPACE and implemented in collaboration with CARE Iraq.

27/09/2026

محمد… شابٌّ من إخوة السلام يُلهم من حوله 🕊️

"أنا من ذوي الإعاقة البصرية، ومع ذلك أواصل دراستي."

سمع محمد فاخر من دهوك عن برنامجنا التدريبي لبناء القدرات الذي امتد 16 يومًا، عندما أرسل له أصدقاؤه رابط التسجيل. فتقدّم وانضم إلى مشروع مركز المرأة والسلام والأمن بوصفه أحد "إخوة السلام"، وسرعان ما أصبح من أكثر المشاركين حضورًا وتفاعلًا.

خلال التدريب وورشة توليد الأفكار، شارك محمد بثقة في النقاشات والأنشطة الجماعية، وطرح أفكارًا إبداعية، وقدّم عرضين تقديميين مميزين. كما حدّث أصدقاءه الذين فاتتهم الفرصة عن البرنامج، فأصبحوا متحمسين للمشاركة في الدورات القادمة.

"بصراحة، وجود شخص مثل محمد في المجموعة منحها طاقة خاصة. فأفكاره وطريقة تعبيره عن آرائه تُظهر أنه قادر ومفعم بالأمل والتفاؤل."
— خضر دوملي، مدرّب بناء القدرات

يدرك محمد أن بعض العائلات تتردد في إشراك أبنائها من ذوي الإعاقة في مثل هذه البرامج، ظنًّا منها أنهم يحتاجون إلى دعم إضافي. لكن رسالته واضحة: "أشجّع الجميع على المشاركة في مثل هذه الأنشطة والفرص، والاستفادة من تدريبات بناء القدرات."

An Inclusive Young Peace Brother 🕊️

"I am a person with a visual impairment, yet I continue my studies."

Mohammed Fakhir from Duhok heard about our 16-day capacity-building training when friends sent him a link. He applied and joined the WPS Centre Project as a Peace Brother, and he quickly became one of the most engaged voices in the room.

During the training and Ideation Workshop, he shared creative ideas, spoke confidently in discussions and team activities, and gave two impressive presentations. He also told friends who had missed out about the programme, and now they want to join future courses too.

"Honestly, having someone like Mohammed in the group gave the group a special energy," says Khdir Domle, Capacity Building Trainer. "His ideas and the way he expresses his opinions show that he is capable, hopeful, and optimistic."

Mohammed knows some families hold back loved ones with disabilities from programmes like this because they think they'll need extra support. His message is clear: "I would encourage everyone to participate in activities and opportunities like these and benefit from capacity-building trainings."

Thank you, Mohammed, for showing that inclusion makes peacebuilding stronger. 💛

22/09/2026

🕊️ Peace Starts with Us — swipe through our day

The International Day of Peace at Ararat Technical Institute in Duhok, held with the Institute and its students under our Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Centre Project.

You’ll see the Peace Commitment Wall filling up with one promise at a time. Peace Sisters and Brothers speaking in Kurdish, Arabic, Syriac and English. Brushes, canvases and the three artworks that stayed with us. Small circles at the Peace Café, each one naming a change their community needs. A room of men and boys talking about their part in peace and gender equality. And the Nursing Department’s students offering free health check-ups to everyone who walked in.

Thank you to DCVAW, the Directorate of Health, the Duhok Mayoralty, and our colleagues from NGOs, INGOs and civil society organisations for being with us.

21/09/2026

🕊️ Peace Starts with Us

Today we marked the International Day of Peace at Ararat Technical Institute in Duhok, in collaboration with the Institute and its students, under our Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Centre Project.

We asked everyone one question: what is one action I will take for peace? Their answers filled our Peace Commitment Wall.

Our Peace Sisters and Brothers shared what peace means to them, in Kurdish, Arabic, Syriac and English, because peace sounds like all of our communities. We painted together in Peace Through Art, and recognised three artworks that stayed with us. We sat in small circles over a Peace Café, each group naming one practical change that would make their community more peaceful. We held a session on men and boys as partners for peace and gender equality. And alongside the Institute’s Nursing Department, we offered free basic health check-ups to everyone who came.

Thank you to the Directorate of Combating Violence Against Women and Family (DCVAW), the Directorate of Health, the Duhok Mayoralty, and our colleagues from NGOs, INGOs and civil society organisations for being with us.

19/09/2026

We are pleased to announce a new partnership with medica mondiale e.V. and the Directorate General of Health (DoH) in Duhok.

The International Stress and Trauma-Sensitive Healthcare Programme in Post Conflict and Crisis Contexts (ISTHP) is a global project and a continuation of the second and third phases of the Transnational Health Training Programme (THTP II and III), which aimed at strengthening the health sector response to violence against women. THTP was funded by BMZ (German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development) and was completed in April 2026 in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

In ISTHP, medica mondiale is collaborating with the Lotus Flower and the General Directorate of Health to expand the project activities to two health facilities in the Duhok province, to test and pilot the institutionalisation of the Stress and Trauma Sensitive Standard Operating Procedures developed in the previous phase of the project.

Together with our partners, we will work on the following activities to ensure the project objectives are fulfilled:

🔹 Qualification and strengthening of health professionals
🔹 Advocacy work on country-level institutionalisation of the stress- and trauma-sensitive approach in health services (STA-HS)

16/09/2026

We’re delighted to welcome Kae Kurd as our newest Ambassador. Having men stand alongside us as allies matters deeply to our work, and having Kae join as our first male Ambassador is a brilliant example of men supporting women.

Kae Kurd is a British-Kurdish stand-up comedian and writer. Born to a family who fled Iraq during the Anfal campaign, he grew up in Brixton, South London, one of the only Kurdish kids in his class, an experience that still shapes the comedy he writes today: sharp, personal and unafraid to tackle race and identity head-on.

Since starting out on the circuit in 2011, Kae has become one of British comedy’s most distinctive voices, taking his stand-up to the Edinburgh Fringe and a headline show at London’s Eventim Apollo. He’s a regular on Live at the Apollo and Mock the Week, and writes for Have I Got News For You and ITV’s Loaded in Paradise.

As an Ambassador, Kae brings his experience of growing up in the Kurdish diaspora and a platform built on speaking openly about identity, using it to raise awareness of the community The Lotus Flower supports.

Welcome, Kae 🌸

10/09/2026

At The Lotus Flower Centre in Domiz-2, a group of women and girls has just completed our handcraft course, and celebrated with a graduation session.

The sessions were never only about technique. Alongside learning to make things with their own hands, participants found a space to express themselves, build confidence, and spend time together as a community.

They told us they loved having somewhere to learn and create side by side. And the skills don’t end with the course some are already thinking about turning what they’ve made into handmade products they can sell, and an income of their own.

This is what a room full of women, working together, can start.

Delivered under the Education, Skills and Community Empowerment Project, funded by ALMT.

05/09/2026

We’ve wrapped up a five-day Business Management Training and Ideation Workshop under the Women’s Business Incubator and Mental Health Support Project, funded by the IF! Foundation.

Women and girls from Essyan, Rwanga, Domiz 1 and Domiz 2 refugees and IDPs alike spent the week building the skills behind a working business: entrepreneurship basics, SMART goal setting, business plans, market and SWOT analysis, marketing, costing and financial records.

Now comes the next step. From this third cohort, 20 women will be selected based on their business plans and will receive financial support to launch their businesses in their own communities.

For many of them, this is the beginning of their first independent income.

اختتمنا تدريباً في إدارة الأعمال وورشة لتوليد الأفكار استمرّا خمسة أيام، ضمن مشروع حاضنة أعمال النساء والدعم النفسي، بتمويل من مؤسسة IF!.

نساء وفتيات من مخيمات إيسيان وروانكا ودوميز 1 ودوميز 2، من اللاجئات والنازحات على حدّ سواء، أمضين الأسبوع في بناء المهارات التي يقوم عليها أي مشروع ناجح: أساسيات ريادة الأعمال، ووضع الأهداف الذكية (SMART)، وإعداد خطط العمل، وتحليل السوق وتحليل SWOT، والتسويق، وحساب التكاليف، ومسك السجلات المالية.

والآن تأتي الخطوة التالية. من هذه الدفعة الثالثة، سيتم اختيار 20 امرأة استناداً إلى خطط أعمالهنّ، وسيحصلن على دعم مالي لإطلاق مشاريعهنّ داخل مجتمعاتهنّ.

04/09/2026

Tomorrow on 5 September is the International Day of Charity, the UN's day to mark the difference that giving time and skill, as well as funds, can make.

So it felt like the right day to introduce our Board of Advisers.

Our Advisers bring expertise from finance and wealth management, law and diplomacy, psychotherapy and safeguarding, creative leadership, and hospitality. Several have spent their own careers helping women move forward in fields that weren't built with them in mind, work that speaks directly to ours.

Their knowledge sharpens our decision making, while their networks open doors we wouldn't be able to reach alone.

Please join us in welcoming them to The Lotus Flower family, and in thanking them for standing with the girls and women rebuilding their lives after conflict and displacement.

Please visit the link in bio to find out more about each member's story and what they bring to The Lotus Flower.

Address

29 White Rock
Hastings
TN341JY

Website

http://www.thelotusflower.org/

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